Tolerant?

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

The al-Jazeera Memo: New FOIA request as reported on Newsnight

The al-Jazeera Memo: New FOIA request as reported on Newsnight

BBC Newsnight are reporting a new Freedom of Information Request concerning the memo detailing the plan to bomb al-Jazeera. This request is being filed by al-Jazeera on behalf of two British Citizens living in Doha, based on the fact that they could have been killed had the attack taken place. The point behind this, according to Newsnight, is that under British Law, "the duty to disclose any possible crime would override any duty of confidence to an ally." They also discuss the previous FOIA request, and make the point that the denial of that request officially confirms the existence and subject of the al-Jazeera memo. Something the mainstream media and deadwood press have resolutely ignored to date... -------------- Thank you for your email of 24 November in which you request a copy of any memos or notes that record President Bush's discussions with the Prime Minister about the bombing of the al-Jazeera television station in Qatar. Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I can confirm that the cabinet Office holds information which is relevant to your request -------------- More detail, including an audio grab of the newsnight segment and a transcript can be found here: http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/783 Details of the first FOIA request and it's implications are here: http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/701 With one week to go before the trial of Keogh and O'Connor, the two men being charged under the Official Secrets Act for leaking the document in the first place, the more we can shout about this, the better. Cheers Dan [ringverse] -- www.blairwatch.co.uk

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Justice Unserved - By Dima Tareq Tahboub

Saturday, December 17, 2005Justice Unserved - By Dima Tareq Tahboub, widow of Tareq Ayyoub, Aljazeera correspondent killed in Baghdad on the 8th of April 2003Somewhere in a dusty drawer in the deserted bedroom that used to belong to me and my husband Tareq before his killing, lies the statement issued by the American army apologizing for what it described then as the “accident” of bombing Aljazeera office in Baghdad, which resulted in the killing of my 33 year old husband, Tareq Ayyoub,who was reporting for Aljazeera from Baghdad during the war.Three years next April will have passed since the killing of my husband. We spent the same number of years together, three years of happy and blessed marital and paternal life that were cut short by the dark forces of American democracy.Three years of non-stop efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice, each endeavour took us from one big disappointment to another, from one dead end to another cul-de-sac.Fascinated by Cervantes DonQuixote, I never dreamt of taking up his role in tilting the windmills of American justice which until now have proved a lost battle. Starting in Belgium, two months after the killing, I tried to sue the generals of the American Army and the Secretary of Defence, benefiting from a law on war crimes and criminals. My family and I had such hopes that time has come for our Tareq’s soul to rest in peace and for our hearts to come to terms with grief and loss. To our amazement, a month later, the law was amended to exclude leaders of state and high ranking army officers from accountability for war crimes.Fuelled by a one and a half year old little baby girl, my daughter Fatima, I had to look for other options to pursue the case. The majority of lawyers I consulted in my country, Jordan, believed that a law suit before Jordanian courts is likely to be turned down, as Jordanian courts aren’t authorized to file cases against the United States and even if it did, the American Embassy in Jordan, the diplomatic representative of the US in Jordan, may reject to comply with any court orders or attend trials.Foggy as the horizon was, I decided to pin the remnants of my will and hope on the greatest and oldest democracy in the world, England. Not being a British subject deprived me from attaining my human right in demanding justice for my killed husband, for me and our daughter before British law.The journey of pain didn’t stop there, I had the opportunity of meeting with Mr. Clive Stafford Smith, who earnestly took on the case and promised to look into it. After months of studying, he levelled with me that our chances of obtaining justice or any form of indictment against the US Army are close to nothing, not because we lacked grounds, right or credibility, but because it was impossible to bring the army to justice. Still, he made a last attempt to resurrect the case and handed the documents to the Centre of Constitutional Rights in New York.Months passed before the same old story was told to me again and again which simply summarized that I should forget the matter and suffice with the word of apology I received.Three years and with each day passing by, our prospects in gaining justice grow less and less as such rights fall with the procession of time.Three days passed, never a day without us declaring in everyway and place that the US bombing of Aljazeera office in Baghdad was intentional and premeditated, since Aljazeera has supplied the Pentagon with the coordinates of its office in Baghdad months before the war, but the world turned a deaf ear towards us since the voice of the victims is always low and unheard.Three years passed and my daughter Fatima grew older with endless questions about that man in the picture frame called father.Three years passed and not one organization took the initiative to thoroughly investigate the crime which leaves me puzzled as to the double standards of the UN which recruited a number of its highest personnel to investigate the killing of Samir Qasir, the Lebanese journalist killed in a car bomb in Beirut and done nothing on the behalf of my husband Tareq and his fellow journalists killed by the American Army on April 8th 2003.The report published by the British Daily Mirror is an eye opener on the secret world of American political deception and the American agenda to silence all eye witnesses and opposing voices to its policies.There is nothing new in the report except that it revealed the ugly face of the so called American freedom and democracy preached to the world by the American president.To me, it all boils down into the killing of a promising young man, faithful husband, and loving father, the widowing of a 27 year old wife left after three years of marriage to face the world alone with growing pains, the orphaning of a one and a half year old girl who will grow with no father to read her a bed time story, to celebrate her happy occasions, to attend her graduation and party in her wedding.This the real story behind the story, this is the true report behind the report, this our tragedy unabridged.As years pass, I grow more convinced in what Martin Luther King once wrote: “ Law doesn’t change the heart nor restrain the heartless.”Dima Tareq TahboubWidow of Tareq Ayyoub, Aljazeera correspondent killed in Baghdad on the 8th of April 2003

al Jazeera memo

Saturday, December 31, 2005

More on Torture

October 27, 2005The reality of Britain's reliance on tortureCraig Murray writes today in The Independent on the reality of Britain's reliance on torture"Torture means the woman who was raped with a broken bottle, and died after 10 days of agony"The Government has been arguing before the House of Lords for the right to act on intelligence obtained by torture abroad. It wants to be able to use such material to detain people without trial in the UK, and as evidence in the courts. Key to its case is a statement to the Law Lords by the head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller. In effect she argues that torture works. It foiled the famous ricin plot.She omits to mention that no more ricin was found than is the naturally occurring base level in your house or mine - or indeed that no poison of any kind was found. But let us leave that for now. She argues, in effect, that we need to get intelligence from foreign security services, to fight terrorism. And if they torture, so what? Her chief falsehood is our pretence that we don't know what happens in their dungeons. We do. And it is a dreadful story. Manningham-Buller is so fastidious she even avoids using the word "torture" in her evidence. Let alone the reality to which she turns such a carefully blind eye.Manningham Buller also fails to mention that a large number of people have been tortured abroad to provide us with intelligence - because we sent them there to be tortured. The CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme has become notorious. Under it, detainees have been sent around the world to key torture destinations. There is evidence of British complicity - not only do these CIA flights regularly operate from UK airbases, but detainees have spoken of British intelligence personnel working with their tormentors.So the UK receives this intelligence material not occasionally, not fortuitously, but in connection with a regular programme of torture with which we are intimately associated. Uzbekistan is one of those security services from whose "friendly liaison" services we obtained information. And I will tell you what torture means.It means the woman who was raped with a broken bottle in both vagina and anus, and who died after ten days of agony. It means the old man suspended by wrist shackles from the ceiling while his children were beaten to a pulp before his eyes. It means the man whose fingernails were pulled before his face was beaten and he was immersed to his armpits in boiling liquid.

It means the 18-year-old whose knees and elbows were smashed, his hand immersed in boiling liquid until the skin came away and the flesh started to peel from the bone, before the back of his skull was stove in.These are all real cases from the Uzbek security services which we viewed as friendly liaison, and from which we obtained regular intelligence, in the Uzbek case via the CIA.A month ago, that liaison relationship was stopped - not by us, but by the Uzbeks. But as Manningham-Buller sets out, we continue to maintain our position as customer to torturers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and many other places. The key point is that none of the these Uzbek victims were terrorists at all.The great majority of those who suffer torture at the hands of these regimes are not terrorists, but political opponents. And the scale of this torture is vast. In Uzbekistan alone thousands, not hundreds, of innocent men, women and children suffer torture every year.Across Manningham-Buller's web of friendly intelligence agencies, the number may reach tens of thousands. Can our security really be based on such widespread inhumanity, or is that not part of the grievance that feeds terrorism?These other governments know that our security services lap up information from their torture chambers. This practical condoning more than cancels out any weasel words on human rights which the Foreign Office may issue. In fact, the case for the efficacy of torture intelligence is not nearly as clear-cut as Manningham-Buller makes out. Much dross comes out of the torture chambers. History should tell us that under torture people would choke out an admission that they had joined their neighbours in flying on broomsticks with cats.

We do not receive torture intelligence from foreign liaison security services sometimes, or by chance. We receive it on a regular basis, through established channels. That plainly makes us complicit. It is worth considering, in this regard, Article 4 of the UN Convention Against Torture, which requires signatories to make complicity with torture a criminal offence.When I protested about these practices within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I was told bluntly that Jack Straw and the head of MI6 had considered my objections, but had come to the conclusion that torture intelligence was important to the War on Terror, and the practice should continue. One day, the law must bring them to account.A final thought. Manningham-Buller is arguing about the efficiency of torture in preventing a terrorist plot. If that argument is accepted, then in logic there is no reason to rely on foreign intermediaries. Why don't we do our own torturing at home? James VI and I abolished torture - New Labour is making the first attempt in English courts to justify government use of torture information. Why stop there? Why can't the agencies work over terrorist suspects?

The Security Services want us to be able to use information from torture. That should come as no surprise. From Sir Thomas Walsingham on, the profession attracts people not squeamish about the smell of seared flesh from the branding iron. That is why we have a judiciary to protect us. I pray the Law Lords do.